Greene, Robert

Greene, Robert,

1558?–1592, English author. His short romances, written in the manner of Lyly's Euphues, include Pandosto (1588), from which Shakespeare drew the plot for A Winter's Tale, and Menaphon (1589). His best plays, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) and The Scottish History of James IV (1598), are a potpourri of romance, fantasy, and history. He wrote numerous tracts and pamphlets reflecting his knowledge of the London underworld as well as his own bohemian life. An alleged attack on Shakespeare—one of the earliest references to the man—is in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1592). A Quip for an Upstart Courtier (1592), a social allegory, is considered his best pamphlet. Greene's short life ended in dire poverty. After his death he became the subject of a heated quarrel between Gabriel HarveyHarvey, Gabriel,
1545?–1630?, English author. He studied at Cambridge and became a fellow of Pembroke Hall. There he became friends with Edmund Spenser, who later celebrated Harvey as Hobbinol in The Shepherd's Calendar.
..... Click the link for more information.  and Thomas NasheNashe or Nash, Thomas
, 1567–1601, English satirist. Very little is known of his life. Although his first publications appeared in 1589, it was not until Pierce Penniless His Supplication to the Devil
..... Click the link for more information. .

Bibliography

See his Life and Complete Works (ed. by A. B. Grosart, 15 vol., 1881–86; repr. 1964).

Greene, Robert

 

Born July 1558, in Norwich; died Sept. 3, 1592, in London. English author and playwright.

The first of Greene’s plays that has been preserved is The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon (c. 1588). Greene and T. Lodge wrote the satirical comedies A Looking Glasse for London and Englande (1590) and The Historie of Orlando Furioso (1591). Greene’s most famous plays are The Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1589) and The Scottish Historie of King James IV (1591, published 1598), which combine a theme of love and adventure with a comical plot. He was the author of pamphlets and the pastoral novels Pandosto (1598) and Menaphon (1589). Shakespeare used the plot of Pandosto in A Winter’s Tale. Greene was probably the author of the anonymous A Pleasant Comedy of George Green, the Wakefield Guard (1599), which glorified a peasant who helped the king suppress a feudal revolt.

WORKS

Plays and Poems, vols. 1–2. Oxford, 1905.
In Russian translation:
In Khrestomatiia po zapadnoevropeiskoi literature: Epokha Vozrozhdeniia. Compiled by B. I. Purishev. Moscow. 1947.

REFERENCES

Storozhenko, N. [I.] Robert Grin: Ego zhizn’ i proizvedeniia. Moscow, 1878.
Veselovskii, A. N. “Robert Grin i ego issledovateli.” Sobr. soch., vol. 4, fase. 1. St. Petersburg, 1909. Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 1, fasc. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1943.
Istoriia zapadnoe vropeiskogo teatra, vol. 1. Moscow, 1956.
Jordan. J. C. R. Greene. New York, 1965.

I. M. KATARSKII